A Bushel and a Peck? etc.

In January 1970, Canada went metric under Pierre Trudeau. I was near the end of high school and had spent the previous 11 years memorizing 5280 feet to the mile, 1760 yards to the mile, 2 pints make a quart, 4 quarts make a gallon, 16 ounces make a pound, etc. etc. When I was finished university and buying groceries for the first time, I started having to deal with grams and kilograms. I now have a pretty good grasp of units of weight and can convert back and forth pretty easily from metric to the British system; likewise between kilometres and miles. Celsius still doesn't come easy though and I usually have to 'multiply by two and add 30'.

Last night, I got a box of Empire apples from my knitting friend, Darla. I knew it wasn't as big as a bushel but I had no idea what unit of volume it was. This morning I actually read the box and it said a peck. Skip informed me that it was half a bushel. I must have missed the 'two pecks make a bushel' lesson in elementary school.

Anyway.... this morning I made enough applesauce (unsweetened with cloves and cinnamon) to occupy about 1/6 of our little freezer. It was about 14 2-cup containers. It took all morning and once Skip helped me peel apples, the last part went very quickly. I probably won't even be serving applesauce for Thanksgiving, but I'm glad I got it done.

Wow! I just saw a commercial for the Canadian Olympic Team attire from The Bay and am loving the Cowichan Bay-type sweaters. It's disappointing that the Cowichan Natives didn't win the bid on producing the sweaters for the Canadian Olympic team. I'm sure they could have found enough knitters to meet the demand. Instead, the Olympic Committee contracted a BC supplier of hand-knit sweaters (in China) to make them for sale for $350 as opposed to $215 that the Cowichan knitters would have offered. I'm SO bummed out the Cowichan Natives didn't get the contract. In its defense, The Bay stated, "It was clear that they (Cowichan knitters) were unable to meet Hudson's Bay Company requirements as a national retailer for consistency, speed to market and volume for delivery". Harumph!

All politics aside, I still am loving the sweater and now will be searching in earnest for a pattern to make a similar one.

Last night at Kniterary, I got a photo of Miranda with the afghan that we all contributed to.

Her baby is due in 11 days (but I don't think she's going to make it that long).

It was a great community effort. Martina had a great vision for it, selecting three shades of Mission Falls superwash wool in green from which we could pick plus a contrasting colour. She laboriously stitched all the squares together.

Now I'm all inspired to knit my own mitred square afghan. But I'll definitely be knitting the squares together if I do get around to making one.






I got to try on Maureen's lovely February Lady sweater that she just finished knitting with the new Berocco Blackstone Tweed yarn.

It's very soft and squooshy yarn.
















and her Fish Hat (Dead or Alive) and Mitts from the 2008 Winter Knitty issue.


















I'm on the 8th ball of 10 on the Lace and Cable baby blanket and really want to get it finished before I cast on another project, the Sagrantino Shawl. It really reminds me of the Jojoland Swirl Shawl but the Sagrantino Shawl pattern is FREE! Wheee!